National Affairs: Jack, Daniel, Frank

"Jack," said famed Samuel Johnson, "has great variety of talk. Jack is
a scholar, Jack has the manners of a gentleman." Jack (John Wilkes,
1727-1797) was also a rowdy, a beerhouse brawler, a blasphemer, a
fornicator, a publisher of lewd and libelous literature. He was
expelled from the House of Commons, outlawed, deported and cast into
prison when, upon his return, King George III refused to pardon him. .
. . But Whigs, great, rich, respected, thronged his prison cell, for
Jack was a Hero. The freeholders of Middlesex had four times elected...